This invention relates to supporting legs for a barbecue grill, but more specifically to detachable legs providing stability against rearward tipping of a barbecue grill having a shifting center of gravity making it subjected to rearward tipping upon loading.
Portable barbecue grills and broilers provide the convenience of mobility. Overall compactness of these devices make them desirable for shipment, storage, or transport but providing a leg construction that permits internal storage of legs and other conveniences presents design challenges to appearance design, functionality, and safety. Ideally, the legs should provide a minimum height of the grill when deployed, provide quick and secure attachment, level positioning even on non-planar surfaces, and importantly, provide stability against tipping under various use or load conditions. Prior legs designs have provided leg attachment under the grill""s housing which, among other things, have mechanically complexity, undue weight, instability, obtrusiveness, or require a sub-frame or strengthening of the housing. Other designs, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,825 to Quinlan, Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,406,931 to Montgomery; U.S. Pat. No. 3,999,472 to Einto; U.S. Pat. No. 3,182,585 to Rensch et al.; D253,804 to Wandel; and D417,120 to Dutro, et al. are not readily detachable and/or do not provide the functionality stated herein.
One problem encountered and addressed during development of the present invention was directed to providing leg members that fit inside a relatively small housing of the grill or shipping container, that quickly and firmly attaches to the grill housing, that provide stability on non-planar surfaces, that provide a handle straddling the grill""s front-to-back center of gravity, and that provides stability against backward tipping when the grill""s load is shifted.
Another problem solved particularly for vertical hearth barbecue grill relates to providing elongated side handles for grasping the grill at various center of gravity positions and/or providing a stop or support for side folding panels hinged to a lid of the grill.
In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, there is provided a vertical hearth barbecue grill having a front-to-rear center of gravity that varies during use where the grill comprises a generally rectangular base having a front, rear and respective sides; a vertical hearth and at least one cooking grid elevated above the base that is subjected to varying load conditions that alter the front-to-rear center of gravity of the grill; a detachable side bar for each side of the grill in the form of an elongated span wherein the span includes respective front and rear downwardly extending appendages and the elongated span traverses a range of the front-to-rear center of gravity of the grill according to varying load conditions in order to provide a handle for grasping the grill within the center of gravity range; and a fastening structure on each side of the grill to permit fastening of the side bar to the base.
In a another embodiment of the invention, these problems were solved by providing detachable leg member on each side of the grill housing in the form of a tubular or sheet metal frame where a top portion of the leg member interlocks with the sides the grill, e.g., an elongated flange or slot opening on each side of the grill housing and a fastener, e.g., a screw bolt, clamp, cam lock, etc., that fastens the detachable leg member to the grill housing such that the appending ends of the legs extend rearward of the range of the grill""s front-to-rear center of gravity. In another aspect of the invention, the grill housing comprises sheet metal possessing a minimum degree of torsional flexibility about an axis that extends from side-to-side so as to permit self-leveling of four legs. In addition, to achieve compactness, each leg may be segmented and/or hinged so that portions thereof fit inside the grill housing. Other implements, such as a protruding handle or a side shelf, may be held in place by friction clamping or interlocking with the leg members. The legs may take on a variety of other shapes, including an A-frame, a U-shape, a partial parallelogram, or a combination thereof.
These and other aspects and features of the invention will become apparent upon review of the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. The invention, though, is pointed out with particularity by the appended claims.